“It’s what you wanted, isn’t it?” Blake’s pleasure in her pleasure was patent.  Every look, every gesture manifested it.

“It is wonderful!” she said, gently.

“Good!  And now, what is the meal to be?  Dragon’s wings en casserole?  Or Moonbeams surprise?”

She laughed, and a flash of mischief stole through the glance she gave him.

“What do you say, mon ami, to poulet bonne femme?”

She watched for a gleam of remembrance, but he was too engrossed in the present to recall the trivialities of the past.  He gave the order without a thought save to do her will.

Delay was inevitable, and while the meal was in preparation they wandered into the open and visited the farm at the rear of the restaurant, conjuring the farm-like traditions of the place after the accepted custom—­entering the sweet-smelling, shadowy cow-shed, stroking the sleek, soft-breathing cows, amusing themselves over the antics of the monkey chained beside the door.

It was all very pleasant, the illusion of Arcadia was charmingly rendered, and they returned, happy and hungry, in search of their meal.  That meal from its first morsel was raised above common things, for was it not the first time Blake had broken bread with Maxine?  And what true lover ever forgets the rare moment when all the joys of intimacy are foreshadowed in the first serving of his lady with no matter what triviality of meat or bread, or water or wine?  The points of the affair are so slight and yet so tremendous; for are they not sacramental—­a typifying of things unspeakable?

No intimate word was spoken, but at such times looks speak—­more poignantly still, hearts speak; and their gay voices, as they laughed and talked and laughed again, held notes that the ear of the waiter never caught, and their silences vibrated with meaning.

At last the meal was over; they rose and by one consent looked toward the spacious world outside.

“Shall we go into the gardens?”

Blake put the question; Maxine silently bent her head.

Softly and assiduously their sleek waiter bowed them to the door, and they passed down the shallow steps into the slim shadows of the trees as they might have passed into some paradise fashioned for their special pleasure.

It was a place—­an hour—­removed from the mundane world; passing out of the region of the trees, they came upon a shrubbery—­a shrubbery that enclosed a lawn and flower-beds, and here, by grace of the gods, was a seat where they sat down side by side and gave their eyes to the beauty that encompassed them.

It was an exotic beauty, yet a beauty of intense suggestion.  Summer lay lavishly displayed in the shaven lawn, the burdened shrubs, the glory of flowers, but over her redundant loveliness autumn had spun an ethereal garment.  No words could paint the subtlety of this sheath; it was neither mist nor shadow, it was a golden transparency spun from nature’s loom—­the bridal veil of the young season.